


The Struggle Itself is Enough.

by cedricsatier



Category: The Old Guard (2020 Movie), The Old Guard (Comic), The Old Guard - Fandom
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Immortality, Musing, Not Ship focused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25207153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedricsatier/pseuds/cedricsatier
Summary: Andy has coffee in the square and confronts men, firsts, and her many names.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 62





	The Struggle Itself is Enough.

**Author's Note:**

> A series of short works about the Old Guard. I'll be updating more in the coming days/weeks. Let me know if if you like the concept!

Andromache of Scythia sat, hungover and nursing her second coffee at a small bistro table that was placed catty cornered from the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. She mused at the shiny, well-placed slate brickwork under her feet that comprised the plaza across from the old (well, old for the americas, she scoffed to herself) cathedral, and remembered when it was just dirt that surrounded the almost new construction site that would become what stood before her. A boy stood nearby, waiting in line at a coffee cart. He occasionally turned back to her, smiling stupidly with a slight blush coloring his milky white cheeks with a kind rosy pink. He was smiling at her...Andromache of Scythia.  
Blood Queen of the Skolotoi.  
The Bloodied Woman of Thrace.  
The First, Second and Sixth Champion of Damascus.  
The Black Haired Captainess.  
And now, Andy Monterey.  


In the last millennia, despite the best efforts of her deeply held skepticism and cynicism and all her other pet isms that she had collected throughout her journey through the ages, she had made a point at least once every hundred years to try to break one of her favorite pass times.  
The one night stand.  
And now, due to the small, dime sized patch of decency and curiosity that grew defiantly in the deep acidic pit that was her very very tired soul, she had dared to not only ask the name of the cute blonde haired boy she had bedded the night before, but asked if he knew any good places for coffee near his apartment in the historic district here in Montreal. She now found herself only half regretting it now, as the coffee that was still warm in her hands was exquisitely good, reminding her slightly of her first time having it a long time ago, being paid with it as a mercenary in Turkey.  


The blonde turned around again, making a pantomime motion with his index finger and thumb and cocking it to his temple. Despite herself, she actually smiled at the small antic. He paid for his second cup and half jogged back to the table and tilted his head a bit, trying to catch her eyeline. A gold cross sat on his exposed hairy chest and Andy suddenly remembered when she had first heard of Christ.  


It was back when time was measured by how many years had passed since the last emperor had ascended to the purple. Years earlier, Noriko had told her in passing about a little Jewish boy out in Judea had been put down by the Romans who had called himself a King. She laughed and then felt bad after when she said he was put up on one of those crosses on the hill. The ones where they just leave you to rot. Even after all her years she stifled a wince. Probably eighty years later and under a new emperor, she had been thrown in a magistrates cell just outside of Rome for drunkenly punching the brother of the local tax man. Noriko had broken her out the day after, but not before they threw in a skinny Roman kid, barely old enough to be twenty. He breathed fast, in and out, in and out, and in the dirt of his little corner he drew a small fish over and over and over. She remembered throwing him her wineskin and asking about his beloved little fish. He told her that a man named Yeshua had died for him, stole the sword that was meant for his belly and took the blow for him. He told her he dreamed of him at night, and that this was his fish. These were the days before Nicaea and this Roman boy’s little fish probably had little in common with what the blonde boy before him believed, but the sudden connection startled her and made her look at him with a new kind of light.  


A day of firsts, a rare thing for a thing as ancient as she. As the two talked more, she remembered why she tortured herself like this.  
And she made a note to do it more often.


End file.
